To its credit, the body followed the optimistic assessment with a prescient warning: "But once the post-independence honeymoon is over, there is always a danger that it could slide into repression and dictatorship instead of continuing the positive progress."

Truly, somehow, somewhere, along the Nile, the freedom bandwagon overturned. The country's press has graduated, alas! digressed from an oppressed press to a persecuted one.

With frequent assaults on the nascent media, the country's increasingly tyrannical rulers are aborting freedom before it blossoms.

The honeymoon ended in December when a high impact columnist, government critic and former freedom fighter, Isaiah Abraham Diing Chan, was gunned down in his home in Juba.

The killing numbed rights groups and South Sudanese who ascribed a more hopeful vision for the country. What a terrible epiphany!

Enacting the media bills into law will represent a bold step forward in the fight against press suppression. Even so, the country's national security agencies are politicized to the extent that they put the President ahead of the nation. Press freedom can only reign when nepotism gives way to meritocracy in the employment of security personnel.

In the past attacks on journalists were seen as non-structural. That's no longer the case. Systematic repression has kicked in.

My experience as a former radio host in the country and some worrisome recent developments are cases in point.

Wake Up Juba, my former breakfast show at Radio Bakhita, used to be targeted for fostering critical across the political spectrum debates about current affairs.

In October last year, shortly after an unpopular agreement was signed with Sudan, the national security asked my former boss to choose between the show and the Catholic owned station. The director forwarded the message to the administration which sat on it.

Subsequently, the security held a pivotal meeting with local media organizations and journalists, except Bakhita. I heard it was a referendum on Wake Up, Juba! "You were put on trial in absentia," a journalist told me. "You must support the agreement," the local press was instructed. "Don't be like Wake Up, Juba!"

Some friends recommended that I sit down with junior security officers responsible for my 'file' to resolve the issue amicably. My first meeting with them at a hotel was successful. They referred me to their superiors.

At a final meeting at security headquarters a conclusive message boiled down to 'cooperation' or as they reminded me, subtly: "We've 'orders' and we know where you live and who your friends are."

That evening, a neighbour at a compound where I stayed told me to 'watch out.' She had seen a guy whose room was adjacent to mine knock on my door, clad in full national security uniform. I spent what proved to be my last weekend in Juba sleeping at the radio's studio.

On Monday morning of October 15, 2012, I hosted my last show and took off for the airport... and that's how I left the country.

When Garang walked to his car that evening, he found security waiting for him. "These guys said I should give them a lift to our gate but from there they told me to continue to their office."

At their headquarters he was disarmed of his possessions and told to follow an agent. "He opened the room and locked me in.

"That was it. I spent the night locked up but I didn't know the reason for my arrest."

The next day, during an investigation, he was accused of broadcasting "Poor video footages of the President on the TV." Garang says he has minimal link to President's press unit: "They bring their work edited with orders not to touch."

By depriving the young media of its 'senses', the South Sudanese government not only jettisons the much hyped 'democracy', but it also drives on a fast lane to state collapse.